‘Black Doves’ turns Keira Knightley into a spy: ‘We all have different versions of ourselves’

Keira Knightley found it easy to relate to the spy she portrays in Black Doves, her first television series in more than two decades. “We all have different versions of ourselves inside us. You show each person a different version. I am a different person with my children than when I am working,” explains the actress.

In the series — which premiered on Netflix on Thursday and has already been renewed for a second season — Knightley plays Helen Webb, the wife of an important politician and mother of two children. She is also a spy who has been leaking government information to a mysterious organization, Black Doves, for over a decade. After the murder of her lover and other victims, her boss calls on an old friend of Helen’s, a hitman, to protect her.

“Spy stories are fascinating—the idea of hidden worlds, hidden lives, and people living in these murky realities,” Knightley continues in a video call interview from late October.

Sitting next to Knightley is Ben Whishaw, who plays a champagne-loving hitman tormented by impossible love. He keeps his conscience at bay by clinging to a mantra: “Every time I shoot, the world gets better.” Black Doves has the look and structure of a classic spy thriller, with moments of action, touches of humor, and a Christmassy London setting that contrasts with the dark conspiracy the protagonists are entangled in.

Behind the plot is screenwriter Joe Barton, known for thrillers like Giri/Haji and The Lazarus Project. Indeed, Knightley became interested in the script after watching Giri/Haji, which convinced her to make the leap to television after years of waiting for the right story. According to Barton, Black Doves blends two very different styles of spy stories: one more “cerebral and calm,” like The Spy Who Came in from the Cold and other adaptations of John le Carré's books, and another dominated by action, like Mission: Impossible. It’s a story that takes itself seriously but also uses humor to lighten the mood.

“What motivated me was the idea of a woman who essentially had a secret life, and the layers of secrets that complicate her existence as a spy — what’s real and what’s not about her. I wanted to write a complex character and weave some espionage around her,” says Barton, also via video call.

As befits a series about spies and hitmen, Black Doves has plenty of violence and bloodshed, which posed a challenge for its two protagonists. “Neither of us had worked much with stunt coordinators before, at least I hadn’t in nearly 20 years. It was a challenge. We had a great team, and we trained for a month before filming started, but with a series, everything moves quickly, and we only had one day to shoot those sequences. It was a challenge, but also a lot of fun,” recalls Knightley.

And as with every Christmas story, there are carols and colorful lights, but in Black Doves, the holiday touch extends to the conversations between the killers about their favorite Christmas films. “I’ve always wanted to write a story set during the holidays,” says Joe Barton. “It’s such a cinematic time of year, and London at Christmas is especially cinematic. I liked the idea that Helen [the protagonist] is a wife, mother, and also a spy, and that she has to juggle all these secretive and stressful tasks —avenging the death of her lover, uncovering a conspiracy — while also having to buy presents for her children and attend the school party... All of that adds an extra layer of dynamism to the plot,” explains the screenwriter.

The two actors highlight the unique relationship between their characters — a complicity and friendship that goes beyond mere professional duty. “It’s very rare to find a platonic relationship at the center of the story, one that anyone would be lucky to have. A friend who knows you so well. I had never played something like that before, and it was exciting to find it in a spy thriller, with all the death and destruction that comes with that,” says Knightley.

For Barton, the hardest part of writing a spy story is maintaining the action and plot intensity needed to hold the viewer’s attention and prevent the narrative from bogging down. “You need things happening all the time. Finding the driving force of the story is really hard. If you’re writing a character drama, it’s easier in some ways because you’re dealing with people and emotions — things we all understand. But writing in this genre, dealing with things that aren’t part of everyday experience, is much more difficult,” he reflects on the series.

The spy genre never seems to go out of fashion. “In a way, it gives people an outlet to immerse themselves in these stories and characters. Plus, they’re very entertaining,” explains Whishaw, who has prior experience in the genre, having starred in London Spy and participated in the James Bond universe. Even his grandfather was a spy for the U.K. and lived a double life during World War II. “Their lives are dangerous. Maybe people miss a bit of danger in their own lives,” he adds.

This aspirational element of these stories, filled with secrets, missions, and emotion, is also acknowledged by the series’ creator. “There’s always an element of wish fulfillment with these stories — the idea that there’s something beneath the surface in everyday life. Although, I think being a spy is probably much more boring than it seems on screen,” he concludes.

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